In the state of the art, it is known to use kitchens or “galleys”, in which a cabinet makes it possible to store trolleys which are intended for distributing drinks and refreshments as well as, if applicable, prepared meals in the aisle of an aeroplane of a passenger airline.
The meal distribution trolleys generally have a parallelepipedic shape. A meal distribution trolley runs on four wheels fixed to the base of the trolley. Handles allow the stewards and flight attendants to take the meals and refreshments to be distributed along the aisle between the rows of passenger seats.
Before this use, the trolleys are made up, for example in the air terminal, then stored in a hold, below the passenger deck. When the cabinet containing the trolleys is empty, new full trolleys are inserted, which are subsequently distributed during the flight.
In order to carry out this loading procedure, it is known to use a kind of lift, passing through the floor of the passenger deck, and making it possible to take one or more meal distribution trolleys from the hold to the cabin or passenger deck. The trolleys awaiting distribution are then stored in a trolley storage cabinet on a single level, at the level of the floor of the cabin. The used trolleys are then taken down into the hold by reversing the operation.
Such a state of the art is for example represented by the documents EP-A-0443897, GB-A-2.131.779, US2006/0186268. It has in particular the drawback of requiring a hole to be made through the floor of the passenger deck, which weakens its structure, unless it is reinforced with an additional special arrangement.
In another state of the art, it is known to use trolley storage cabinets comprising at least two superimposed levels of trolley storage drawers. Particularly in order to access the trolleys stored on the upper level above the floor of the cabin, a horizontal platform is used, which is then raised to the desired level in order to extract one or more trolleys from, or introduce one or more trolleys into, the storage compartment.
Such a state of the art is in particular presented by the document WO 2008/070835. However, this state of the art does not make it possible to load a drawer on a higher level with a trolley if this drawer is not situated close to a side pillar which serves as a lift. A situation of this kind is also represented by the document US2005/0133308.
It is not possible to access a particular trolley in this way. Moreover such a solution has a particularly high space requirement since an area has to be reserved in the meal distribution trolley storage cabinet in order to arrange therein the lift which makes it possible to access a single upper level.
Moreover, the use of a horizontal lifting platform as lift, especially in the case where several trolleys have to be lifted at the same time, can result in bending of the horizontal platform and also result in sagging of the cabinet itself.